STEPHEN GLOVER: Why is the Left so silent about the alarming brutality of post-apartheid regimes in southern Africa?

No one under sixty will remember Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965, when Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) decided to go it alone under the rule of a white minority.

Nor will anyone less than about fifty remember the evils of South Africa’s white supremacist apartheid regime in the 1980s, or the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, or the infectious optimism surrounding the country’s first black government in 1994.

Rhodesia and South Africa were two of the most important foreign stories of the time, so as a young journalist I went out of my way to visit them as often as possible.

The people on the left hated Ian Smith’s regime even more than the South African government, even though Rhodesia never introduced racial segregation or apartheid.

When Smith declared UDI, the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, advocated bombing Rhodesian rail lines. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, questioned whether “Christian justice” could be served by violently overthrowing the Smith regime.

Distaste for white rule persisted on the left until Smith was replaced in 1980 by Robert Mugabe. Left-wing Labor agitator Tony Benn wrote that he could ‘remember nothing that I enjoyed so much for a long time’. He overlooked Mugabe’s acts of terrorism to end white rule.

A generation has passed. Elections were held in Zimbabwe yesterday, and President Emmerson Mnangagwa (nicknamed ‘the Crocodile’) is almost certain to win, as he and his Zanu-PF party hold all the power. The results should be announced within a few days.

But while there will be coverage on the BBC, in the Guardian and other strongholds of progressive thinking, the 80-year-old Mnangagwa is drawing no small share of the slurs over Ian Smith. This is strange, because the Crocodile is an evil man and his regime is much less competent than Smith’s.

His excesses have led to a scathing letter from local Catholic clergy accusing his regime of abuse of power in cracking down on political activists and rampant corruption.

Many people believed that the Crocodile, whatever his faults, couldn’t be as bad as his old boss, Robert Mugabe, whom he replaced in 2017 after 37 years of misrule that left Zimbabwe impoverished. In fact, he could be even worse.

It is estimated that 40 percent of the country lives on less than the equivalent of £1.70 a day, up from 23 percent a decade ago. Inflation doubled in June to 175 percent on an annual basis. Millions have emigrated. The country is a basket case.

Unsurprisingly, the Crocodile is on a dirty campaign. An opposition supporter was stoned to death by a Zanu-PF mob, though police, not famous for their independence, claim he was crushed by a vehicle.

In an effort to ingratiate himself with younger voters, Mnangagwa invited retired boxing champion Floyd Mayweather to the country. The boxer rightly supported the tyrant. He is said to have charged up to $750,000 (£590,000) for his visit, a huge sum for a destitute country.

South African President Nelson Mandela and Second Vice President FW de Klerk hold their hands high as they address a huge crowd in front of the Union Building after the inauguration ceremony in Pretoria, South Africa on May 10, 1994.

Zimbabwe is in deep trouble due to abuses of power, first by Mugabe and now by the Crocodile. And yet, as I said, there are very few expressions of outrage from the kind of people who demonized Ian Smith and the white minority government.

A similar story applies to South Africa, which has been embroiled in corruption and mismanagement under the African National Congress (ANC). Apartheid was morally repugnant and it was a wonderful day for humanity when it came to an end. Coincidentally, during the misguided existence of Apartheid, the country functioned quite efficiently. For example, electricity was cheap and there were not as many power cuts as now.

The ANC is losing support, but the beneficiaries may not be the moderate main opposition, but an emerging far-left party called Economic Freedom Fighters, led by Julius Malema, a wild and dangerous man.

At a recent rally in Johannesburg, Malema roused the 100,000-strong crowd to ecstasy by shouting, “Shoot to kill! Kill the Farmer, the Farmer!’ Farmers are synonymous with Afrikaners, who make up about 60 percent of South Africa’s 4.5 million white population, with the remainder largely of British descent.

In fact, many Boers have already been killed, mostly farmers. More than 4,000 white farmers have been murdered since 1994. In recent years, murders have been committed about once a week.

And yet this gruesome carnage gets little attention here and causes no outrage in circles that would once have been appalled by white brutality. Would they be so quiet if four thousand blacks had been slaughtered by whites in the past thirty years? I do not think so.

In a brilliant recent article in Spectator magazine, Andrew Kenny provided a grisly inventory of recent murders. A housewife is forced to watch as her partner’s skull is smashed by intruders. A two-year-old daughter runs to her father, who has been beaten to death with machetes, before being shot dead.

Ian Smith, former Prime Minister of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) walks out of a polling station after voting in the presidential election at Alexandra Park School in Harare on March 10, 2002

Andrew Kenny mentions that Julius Malema travels in Range Rovers and Mercedes, wears a Breitling watch and has a wardrobe full of Italian clothes. In other words, he is the example of postcolonial African leaders who want a high income.

Malema could become South Africa’s vice president after next year’s election if the ANC fares less well and turns to his party for support. How the imperishable Nelson Mandela would have hung his head in shame!

Many on the right are probably as unconcerned as the left about the breakdown of good governance and endemic corruption in Zimbabwe and South Africa. My point is that the left used to be concerned with white brutality, but cared relatively little about black brutality. They also seem uninterested in why these horrible things happen.

There is a kind of reverse racism among some who say they abhor racism. If the perpetrators of bad deeds are black Africans, it is judged less seriously than if they are white Africans. And if the victims of persecution are white, that too is believed to matter less than if they were black.

When I first went to Rhodesia in 1978, I was stunned by the racism and sense that some white people were entitled to it. I remember being shocked by the inhumane way a white farmer treated his black farm workers.

But I also remember a country that at least worked, for all whites and many blacks, and was a net exporter of corn, cotton, and tobacco. I believe there were fewer hungry people in Rhodesia than there are now in Zimbabwe.

A few years before his death in 2007, I interviewed Ian Smith in Zimbabwe. The former wartime RAF pilot would not accept that the horrors of Mugabe’s rule could have been avoided if he had earlier encouraged moderate black leaders. He left it way too late.

But he did say one true thing. I doubted him when he said that blacks often approached him on the street and told him that he had ruled better than Mugabe. He suggested that I sound out my opinion.

So I did. I asked one black Zimbabwean after another. None of them liked Ian Smith very much. They wanted democracy. But yes, almost all of them said Ian Smith would have been preferred to Robert Mugabe.